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Foreword

TAN SRI DATO’ SERI DR. NOOR HISHAM ABDULLAH
Director-General of Health Malaysia

Antimicrobial resistance poses a significant threat to human health around the world.
It adversely impacts infectious diseases, deaths, hospital length of stay, and healthcare
costs. Containment of antimicrobial resistance is critical in ensuring the continuity
of successful treatment with antimicrobials and preventing the emergence of
infections of multidrug-resistant organisms. In the Global Action Plan on
Antimicrobial Resistance, the World Health Organization (WHO) Member States are
called to provide stewardship programmes that monitor and promote optimisation
of antimicrobial use at national and local levels in accordance with international
standards.

Antimicrobial stewardship is based on fundamental principles to guide the
implementation of efforts in promoting judicious antimicrobial use and, therefore,
advance patient safety and improve outcomes. It requires an integrated and
multidisciplinary approach that involves a physician, microbiologist, pharmacist, and
infection control practitioner. Judicious use of antimicrobials includes an appropriate
selection of antimicrobials for proper patients with proper duration and route to
minimise the risk of developing antimicrobial resistance.

The antimicrobial stewardship team provides feedback on prescribing practices,
antimicrobial use, medication safety incidents, local antimicrobial resistance
patterns, and antimicrobial resistance-related infections. They also advise prescribers